by With the epidemic of Heroin abuse continuing to progress in all demographics, research for treatment is surprisingly much to sparse. Although there are many abstinence step work programs making a positive difference, there is still a very small percentage of the ever growing addictive population being reached.
With a new heroin vaccine in the works that may be the greatest heroin break through we’ve ever known, why is it not getting the proper funding to move forward? Professor Kim Janda and Professor George F. Koop’s vaccine has the potential to reach uncharted territories. When tested on animals, they used a dose of heroin that was about 20 times greater than a dose that would normally kill the subject rats, however with this vaccine they were fine. Once the heroin vaccine was applied they claimed the rats not only rejected the heroin but they were completely immune to it.
With the heroin death toll continuing to increase, it would seem urgent to get this vaccine tested on humans. Why has it not? Very simply, money. They claim that the pharmaceutical companies have no interest in funding this heroin vaccine. They believe that there isn’t enough profit in the vaccine, since heroin addicts “don’t have much money.” I guess in their eyes there’s more money in continuing to create drug addicts with medical narcotics then trying to help them quit. Such logic by the corporate world is quite disheartening.
With the millions of people getting hooked and dying of heroin abuse regularly, it would be a waste of time to harp on the immorality of corporate logic. If this vaccine has a chance to lighten the damage of this disease, we cannot let money get in the way of such a scientific breakthrough. Our government needs to step up and donate spending to make sure this research gets put into action on humans. With so many families suffering from the deaths and turmoils of heroin abuse, such possibility of hope is a necessary investment.
